


marks to prove it.

by riskbreakered



Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F, post-season one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 14:48:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12914151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riskbreakered/pseuds/riskbreakered
Summary: Karen stops by with some questions.





	marks to prove it.

They meet again while Dinah is in the hospital. It's not too difficult a task to find her, not when Karen is both determined and resourceful. She stands in the doorway, jacket folded neatly in her arms, and watches the other woman pick at the book in her lap.

"Ms. Page," she says, "I wasn't expecting visitors, but you're welcome to have a seat."

For all that her head is bandaged, bruised, Karen notes that her innate sense of pride hasn't lost itself. It sounds more like a challenge than an invitation, she thinks, but she accepts it either way.

"I didn't exactly peg you as a light reader, but--" Karen gestures at the book in Dinah's lap, looking old and worn and as formidable in size as a heavy brick. 

Dinah marks the page she's reading and sets it aside, enough to show her the cover. _The Count of Monte Cristo_.

"A strange attempt at a parting gift, I suppose," she explains. "Something about revenge, or justice, depending on the reader's point of view. Maybe it'll become clearer once I reach the end."

Karen takes a seat by the bed and places a tiny potted succulent from the downstairs gift shop on the table. 

"It's lovely."

"They're hardy and don't need much extra care, or so I've been told."

"I don't expect this is a social call, however."

Karen offers a half-grin, tucks a strand of hair behind her ear as she thinks about her own reply.

"Once you're feeling up to it, I was hoping we could talk."

"About Frank Castle?"

"About the story I'm writing. After everything that's happened, I was hoping you'd agree to--"

Dinah raises up her hand. "He's alive, recovering and, if the man has wisdom, far away from the city by now."

Karen dips her head low. Dinah continues.

"Look, Ms. Page, I think we've withheld our motivations from each other enough. And having spent significant time under the microscope of these nurses I am honestly out of patience for bullshit. I take it by your presence that he hasn't contacted you?"

They look each other in the eyes.

Karen reaches into her handbag and takes out a business card. She places it beside the small, formidable plant.

"Think about it," she says. "If you ever want to talk, you know how to reach me."

Dinah rests back on the bed. She looks thoughtful, and as resilient as ever Karen has seen her.

"I'll think it over."

*

Weeks go by without word. Karen gives up on this line of contact -- and why shouldn't she? There's little reason to think Agent Madani will remember the little plant, and her request, among everything else that's happened.

She's resigned to this solitude and this pervasive silence.

It's disappointing, but not unfamiliar.

*

So she doesn't anticipate the phone call at her work desk, the terse instructions, a meeting for a coffee and a short conversation.

It's everything she can do to simply catch the next train over. Pressing her way into the coffee shop, looking harried and disheveled, she spots Agent Madani meditating quietly at a table in the back. 

"I was starting to think you wouldn't agree to meet me."

"I said I'd mull it over." Dinah sips at her coffee, looking far more composed in comparison. The number of bandages have lessened.

"How are you feeling?"

"Restless, agitated, bored. It might be the caffeine."

"Have you gone back to work?"

"Is there a place to go back to?"

Karen flinches a little. She's done enough research in the interim to know what must have happened to her colleagues.

Dinah shakes her head. "I needed the distraction. So, what did you want to ask?"

"Since you called for honesty, no more bullshit: I guess I've been left wondering why you let Frank Castle go. From what I've managed to gather so far, it was your decision."

"Off the record?"

"Yeah. Okay, off the record. Why let the Punisher walk away?"

Karen waits for her answer. There's a lot of noise in the shop, from patrons coming and going, from the bustle of the barista behind the counter. 

Dinah holds her cup in both hands and asks, "Why do you do what you do? As a reporter."

Her gaze sweeps over the shop. "I believe in the truth," Karen says, and her small smile belies its strength. "And I want to help people, in my own way."

She couldn't agree with Matt and his self-destructive methods, or Frank and his extremes, but that didn't mean that she refused to see the truth behind them. After everything that's happened to her, to them, to their city and its people, it's only served to strengthen her resolve.

Dinah gives her a small nod. "Exactly. If I carry faith in justice and belief in the system, I have to act accordingly, Ms. Page. Simple as that."

Karen watches her, weighing the answer, and Dinah might still be in recovery but she refuses to shrink back.

"I was wrong before."

"Excuse me?" Karen looks confused.

"The book I was reading when you came to me before. I was wrong, it wasn't about revenge." Dinah moves gingerly to stand up and she takes her coffee cup with her. She looks down at Karen and her dark curls fall along her face. "At the end, I realized it was about hope."

*

The Department of Homeland Security hq rebuilds, of course. Fire and tragedy are only setbacks, and the city makes a significant spectacle of introducing the new building. It is, as one expects, a newspaper-worthy event, and Karen volunteers for the article.

It's a whim. Not one that she immediately puts thought behind. But if Karen took a moment to be honest with herself, she would've admitted that the city has grown damned lonely. Work busies her, but without the few close friends she once claimed as her own -- Matt and Foggy, the phantom of Frank Castle that's come and gone, his whereabouts known to nobody but himself -- she has found it difficult to reconnect. 

So she takes a chance, sits with the rest of the press as speeches are dolled out, photos taken, questions indulged in a limited fashion. Karen takes notes for her article, an outline of what she'll write down later at the office, and afterwards she goes hunting.

Agent Madani has enough stubborn personal pride to have shown up, of course. She is found stalking the edges of the room. Well-dressed and sharp-edged, she glances up from her cell phone at Karen's approach.

"If you're looking for another interview--"

"Actually, I was wondering if you had plans for this afternoon."

Dinah puts her phone in her pocket. Karen wouldn't say that the agent is looming over her exactly, but she has never really minded things like personal space. 

"Only to get out of here. After hours of prep for this --" she offers a flinty look over her shoulder "-- _circus show_ I am calling it a day."

Karen nods, holds her handbag in front of her and seems to come to some silent decision. "Well, I happen to know a few places in the area, of you're up for it."

*

Opening up doesn't happen all at once. They each have history, their own personal boundaries.

Dinah holds her beer bottle like a weapon, and she takes turns with Karen at an interrogation that's almost like a conversation. Standing at the bar counter, elbow to elbow, they find a certain respect to how neither of them really care to back down.

By the time Karen stumbles tiredly into her apartment, she's got the agent's number in her contacts and something bordering on friendship.

*

Time passes, Matt stays missing. 

Karen ends up on a train that takes her close to the sight of the ruined building one day, between appointments, and it's an unwelcome reminder of getting too close to someone. How in the blink of an eye, everything can go wrong. 

She holds her folded newspaper tightly in her fingers and hopes Frank is somewhere safe. That maybe he took her words to heart and made some thought for the after.

Looking out to the city skyline, all she can do is wait and hope.

*

Karen doesn't invite many people over to her apartment. Maybe in her extended solitude she's made it into something of a sacred space. 

Her invitation to Dinah comes after a period of lengthy thought -- but after the agent has fully conceded to being friends with a reporter, she decides the gesture is warranted. 

(She had shown up with coffee at her workplace once, notably by request, and might even have been slightly amused at the quiet wave of terror by the visit from Homeland Security.)

Karen makes dinner, by way of the twenty-four hour take-out shop down the street, and Dinah brings the beer. They sit together at her tiny dining table, and the barbs have blunted into more playful banter.

"I didn't have you pegged as such a plant person."

Dinah sits on the sofa, looking over at the potted flowers on the table. After a few beers, Karen can see the hint of amusement on her face.

She smiles and offers a shrug. "You know, I think it's survived in spite of me."

"Maybe you should have bought a cactus. That thing has suffered my desk for months, and has weathered the worst of my paperwork."

Karen holds her beer in both hands, leaning forward.

"You really kept that thing?"

"Shouldn't I have?" Dinah leans back, resting one arm across the back of the sofa. She looks good in the lamplight, healed of her battle wounds on full of her old fire. "Convalescing after a shot to the head is damned difficult. She kept me company."

Karen wipes the perspiration on her bottle with a swipe of her thumb. "I'm glad," she says. Means it.

They talk long into the evening.

*

Karen doesn't see herself as cynical. Maybe more of a realist, and she can't help but feel as though she's waiting for the other shoe to drop. Her time spent in the city has given her enough evidence toward this sort of doubt.

(It's a matter of self-sufficiency, she reasons; it's a sense of survival.)

But Dinah is dedicated. To her career, to her unwavering sense of justice, but also to their friendship.

_"When it comes to the real stuff, the stuff that'll last forever..."_

Karen folds her arms across her chest and looks down to her apartment floor, thinking of Trish Walker and not for the first time. 

It's late on a Tuesday night. Dinah slides into her jacket, preparing to leave.

"Something the matter?" She's got her hand on the door handle, paused in place when she notices Karen's look. 

"No," she replies, "I'm just glad. Glad you're here."

Karen offers a flick of a smile. She reaches out for Dinah's hand, and it's warm, and just as calloused as she imagined.

"Thank you. I really mean it."

Dinah squeezes her hand back. "You relentlessly put up with me," she assures her with teasing half-smile. "Maybe I should thank _you_."

She really has never given much thought for personal space, and it isn't shocking when Dinah reaches up to touch her face. Karen feels her thumb on her cheek, thinking of how long it's been since she's been this close to someone.

Dinah kisses her forehead in a way that is surprisingly soft.

Karen holds her breath but she hasn't let go of her hand either. Like she's anticipating the inevitable fall. 

The entryway to her apartment is small and dimly lit. She kisses Dinah inside of it.

Dinah's hand slides down Karen's neck to her shoulder, keeping her anchored up.

Thankfully, the world doesn't fall apart.

"Call tomorrow."

"It's late. If you need to stay," Karen gestures to the sofa. 

Dinah moves her hands away, but she's still close enough for Karen to feel her warmth.

_"There are people who run from the fire, and there are people who run into it."_

"I'll be back," Dinah says.

Karen smiles and realizes she believes her.


End file.
